


Got It Bad, So Bad

by triggerswaggiehavoc



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teachers, Cheese, Christmas Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Mild Language, Secret Relationship, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 18:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8725672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triggerswaggiehavoc/pseuds/triggerswaggiehavoc
Summary: Jihoon and Junhui are teachers at the same high school. Geometry and choir have never been so closely related.





	

**Author's Note:**

> just bc i never directly stated it they're like 29 in this au
> 
>  
> 
> also yeah the title is lyrics from hot for teacher because Of Course It Is

Mr. Wen and Mr. Lee have an unusual relationship. The students have all decided this together not three weeks into the start of the school year for a variety of reasons.

Mr. Lee is the choir director. The choir room is a ways off the beaten path of the main hallway in the A Building, and the only other classroom it is reasonably near is the band room. Mr. Wen, on the other hand, is a geometry teacher, and while his own classroom is located on a hallway which adjoins to that in which the choir room is situated, it’s at the complete opposite end and therefore far enough away that neither should wind up in each other’s classroom under normal circumstances. This is where the most important reason for suspicion arises.

Despite the great distance between their havens of instruction, Mr. Wen can be found in the choir room almost more than in his own classroom. Here is the general setup: Mr. Lee sits down behind his piano and tells his students to pull out whatever piece they’ll be rehearsing in class. They only make it through a few measures before a knock on the door interrupts them and Mr. Wen strides in with a large smile on his face and a stack of papers in hand. Among the students, there were several who used to whisper something to the tune of _oh my god who is that he’s so attractive how can I take his class_ , but with his continued interruption of their choir hour, that didn’t last more than a week.

“Hey, Mr. _Lee_ ,” he says, and he says it the same way every time, with emphasis on Lee like it’s some sort of inside joke. “I need to borrow your stapler. Mine’s out.” There are a number of issues with this. Firstly, it happens multiple times in one week, and you would think he would just cave in and buy some new staples of his own. Secondly, there is no stapler in the choir room to begin with, and he ought to know this after the first time he asks to borrow it. Thirdly, and this one is probably the most important, he passes no fewer than four classrooms on the way to get to the choir room, all of which Mr. Lee is sure have perfectly functional staplers. He sighs when an elbow comes to rest on top of his piano just like it always does.

“I don’t have a stapler.” It’s the same answer he always gives. “But I do have some paperclips you can use.”

“Paperclips work just fine,” he says back, smile unwavering. “Where do you keep them?”

“You know where I keep them.” He has to, given how much he comes in to get them, but he still laughs when he hears the assertion and goes straight to the drawer where they are. He hums a rhythmless tune while he plucks a few from within and fastens his papers together.

“You’re running low,” he observes aloud.

“I wouldn’t be if you would buy yourself some staples,” Mr. Lee says bitterly. “Or at the very least borrow some from a classroom a little closer to yours.” Another laugh.

“I’ll try to remember next time,” he fibs. “Thanks for the paperclips!” With a slam of the door, he’s gone until the next time he decides to be a pain.

“If any of you have Mr. Wen for geometry,” Mr. Lee sighs, disgruntled, as he brings his fingers back to the keys, “I’ll throw the whole class a pizza party and reimburse you on top if you get him some staples as a gift once it gets a little closer to Christmas time.” His eyes have a tough time flicking back to where they had been in the music, and before too long, he sighs in defeat. “Let’s start back over from the beginning, then.” The students whisper among themselves before the downbeat, a hasty attempt to determine whether it would even be worth it to buy Mr. Wen some staples or they would just be better off buying Mr. Lee some more paperclips. It’s probably the second option.

Off the clock, Mr. Wen and Mr. Lee do not exist, only Junhui and Jihoon. There are a lot of similarities between the two pairs, and there are also a lot of differences. Most notable is this: while Mr. Lee and Mr. Wen often exist in separate precincts of one much larger building, Jihoon and Junhui typically occupy almost the exact same space under a single roof, in the home they share. Though Mr. Lee isn’t terribly fond of Mr. Wen’s company, Jihoon would really be stretching the truth to say the same of himself for Junhui.

When the clock hits 3:00 in the afternoon every day, Mr. Wen is officially relieved of his duties, and Junhui picks up the torch. For Mr. Lee, the day drags on a little later, right until the end of choir practice at 5:00, and this has been the most key factor in disguising their cohabitation from their gossipy fellow teachers and somehow marginally less gossipy students. How, you might ask? It prevents them from carpooling, obviously. (Read: It prevents them from carpooling at Jihoon’s insistence that Junhui absolutely cannot stick around for the entire two hour rehearsal and distract the children.) Don’t get angry at them on behalf of the environment. They carpool everywhere else.

Jihoon pushes the front door open to find Junhui already working on dinner, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and clothing protected by a black apron he bought for himself that reads, “I Kiss Better Than I Cook!” He smiles warmly at Jihoon over his shoulder, pushing something obscured from view around in a pan. “How was choir practice?” he asks as Jihoon sets his bag on top of the table with a loud bang.

“Okay,” he yawns, sliding into one of the stools at the counter. It’s the wobbly one, but he’s too lazy to get up and move. “They don’t suck as much as they did last year, so I’m not worried.” Junhui laughs and turns around, abandoning the stove to press a kiss to Jihoon’s forehead.

“In the mood to help me chop carrots?” he asks once he’s retreated, already pulling the mentioned carrots out of their bag. Jihoon heaves a weighty sigh. “Don’t give me that. I know you love chopping carrots.”

“I don’t know why you think I like chopping carrots,” Jihoon grumbles, but he slides off the stool anyway and hobbles back to the knife block.

“It helps you get your frustration out,” Junhui says proudly, like it’s a fact he memorized in a book a long time ago.

“It does not,” Jihoon claims as he clips the top off the first carrot, though he can’t dismiss the vague relief he gets with each slice.

“It does so,” Junhui hums, returning to his previous task. “You know I’m right, right?” Jihoon chops in silence for a minute before offering any response.

“Only the two of us are in here, Junnie, and I know you’re not expecting me to agree with you.” It’s Junhui’s turn to sigh now.

“Yeah, whatever. Your refusal to agree doesn’t make me any less right.” He throws a glance over his shoulder and gasps. “Jesus, Jihoon, smaller pieces! Are you trying to kill us? Don’t answer that.” Jihoon snorts and keeps cutting at the exact same size.

While they eat, Jihoon can’t help but think that this probably isn’t what the kids in his class are picturing behind the suspicious gazes they throw every time Junhui knocks on the door. He was a high schooler once too, not abominably long ago, and he knows what kind of strange things are going through their adolescent brains, like weird secret sex in the teacher’s lounge or some other various fucked up thing they shouldn’t even be thinking about. They probably wouldn’t even think it if Junhui didn’t have those habits of leaning way too close when he talks or brushing his hand on the back of Jihoon’s neck sometimes when he walks back out, but he is very notorious for doing both of those, so Jihoon has accidentally overheard hushed conversations on many occasions that consist of things like, “But surely they wouldn’t do it in an empty classroom. Mr. Wen has so many posters in there!” and “I wonder if Mr. Lee stands on something or if Mr. Wen just bends over really far…” and “Do they call each other by their first names? Do they even have first names?” Of course they have fucking first names. Were high school kids always this stupid?

It’s still on Jihoon’s mind when they settle on the couch to watch the news, which is really just him staring at the screen while Junhui grades tests next to him. The shuffling sound of papers is uneven and distinctly non-musical, and it’s really preventing him from paying attention to the television more than it should. Not like he cares much to watch the news anyway, but as an adult, he figures it’s in his best interests to stay at least a little informed. He sighs and throws his head back, only catching every third word, and Junhui’s hand finds his knee.

“I’ve only got a few left,” he says, peering over the edge of his reading glasses. Jihoon’s not sure if he even needs to wear those, but they look good on him, so he never asks. “Do you want me to go grade them somewhere else?”

“You don’t have to,” Jihoon tells him, head lolling onto Junhui’s shoulder. As expected, he can’t be bothered to look over all those scribbles, much less decipher them and determine whether they’re correct. He doesn’t know how Junhui does it.

“Something on your mind?” Jihoon watches him circle things in red pen and cross out others, draw lopsided smiley faces next to particularly well-done calculations. Something about the rhythm of how he does it is soothing.

“I think the students think we’re fucking,” he blurts, eyes still on the test. Junhui laughs, a real guffaw, loud and hearty and so strong it shakes the whole sofa.

“I guess they’re not completely wrong,” he concludes eventually, wiping a tear from his eye and poising his pen on the next test paper.

“You don’t seem concerned.”

“Should I be?” He draws a tiny red heart on Jihoon’s hand with his pen, careless and deliberate. Jihoon tries to rub it off, but all he does is smudge it and make it stand out more. “Are you?”

“All I’m saying,” Jihoon sighs, “is that it’s none of their business whether we are or not.”

“And I agree with you.”

“So you need to stop feeding into their suspicions.” Junhui raises his eyebrows.

“Are you saying I do that?”

“We both know you do that.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know,” Jihoon drawls, “maybe how you deliberately come to my classroom almost every day and ask to use the stapler I don’t have?” Junhui scoffs. “They’re not that dumb. They know you pass a bunch of other classrooms to get to the choir room. And I know damn well you have plenty of staples. I just bought you a huge box.”

“Well, how else am I going to get to see you during the day?” he grumbles. “I get lonely, Jihoon.”

“How can you possibly find the time to get lonely when you’re supposed to be teaching a class?”

“Not important,” he deflects. “What matters is that I do, and until you come up with a better method, I will continue to have a failing stapler.” Jihoon groans.

“I can’t imagine how any of your students learn a thing. They must hate you.”

On the contrary, the general opinion among most of the student body is that Mr. Wen’s geometry class is the most fun class you can possibly take at West Norton High School, and if you can’t get him as a teacher, you’re pretty much doomed to an unhappy life. Most students aren’t even sure why they like his class so much, just that they do, and it might have something to do with how he’ll say things like, “Is anybody here in choir? Should I go bug Mr. Lee and steal some of his paperclips?” followed by, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell him who sent me. We need some for the introduction to triangles, anyhow.” After no more than a minute, he’ll strut back into the classroom with a handful of Mr. Lee’s paperclips fastened to a stack of decoy papers and immediately start straightening them to make the sides of a triangle.

“Mr. Wen,” a student says one time, arm shooting up into the air, “I’ve got a question.”

“Sorry, am I going too fast?” he asks, but the kid just shakes his head.

“That’s not it.” He gestures at the paperclips currently being used to demonstrate the difference among acute, obtuse, and right angles. “You got those paperclips from Mr. Lee, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Junhui replies with a bright smile. “Why, do you have him? Does he complain he’s running low?”

“Well, yeah,” the kid admits hesitantly, “but I was just wondering, do you two actually hate each other, or are you friends?” Junhui laughs a very dry chuckle.

“Mr. Lee and I have known each other for a very long time,” he drones, wry smile curving his lips. “That’s really all there is to say about that.” He keeps going with the lesson like usual, but most of the students start to wonder if that really counts as an answer at all, because most of them feel like that is certainly not all there is to say about that. As with most high school teachers, Junhui does not particularly care how the students feel.

After fall break, the choir starts working on the songs for the Christmas concert, and by then, none of the students are in doubt that there’s more going on between Mr. Lee and Mr. Wen than meets the eye, but they still don’t have any definitive proof, and that’s the only reason Jihoon still catches sleep at night. During the first week of school, all the students new to the choir had all been so awed by how young he looked that they hadn’t taken him seriously, but by now, he’s shown his true tendency toward impatient rage and penchant for highly specific criticism, so they’ve fallen into line well enough that he’s not concerned with how well they’ll be able to sing their holiday music. What does concern him is Junhui’s new habit of visiting the choir room for his entire free period.

Jihoon had initially been thankful for his abandonment of the stapler ruse, but this alternative is definitely worse. Now, instead of numerous brief and distracting interruptions, he gets one hour-long distracting interruption, one that sits next to him on the piano bench even though it’s too small for more than one full-sized adult, and if the students had cause for suspicion before, they’ve really got it now. No matter how many times he elbows it away, Junhui’s arm continues to wrap around Jihoon’s waist while he plays. Most of the students can see it with the piano in the way, and Jihoon is desperate for the stapler business to resume.

The change probably has something to do with Junhui’s love for Christmas tunes—lord knows he ought to be spending his free period getting things entered into the gradebook like everyone else—and Jihoon might sympathize if he weren’t already weary of having to hear them so early on in the year. As things stand, he does not sympathize, and he wishes Junhui would go back to his own stupid classroom instead of sitting too close and making all the students stare at them with wide eyes instead of paying attention to their intonation.

If there’s one positive point, it’s that Junhui sings along when he knows the words. Jihoon doesn’t know if he’s ever said it out loud, but he loves Junhui’s singing voice. He thinks it sounds like silver, the way it glitters when he hangs onto notes for a while, and it’s easy to forget just how much he likes it in the spaces between hearing it and not. A few times, he catches himself smiling, and he doesn’t know if the kids see it or not, but he hopes they don’t. He has a hardass image to maintain, and he can’t let Junhui mess it up.

“You know,” Junhui begins at dinner, just a few weeks after he’s abandoned his stapler charade in favor of free period invasion, “I kind of forgot how much I like to sing.”

“Really?” Jihoon asks. Junhui hums and nods, drumming his knuckles on the tabletop. “I was just thinking the other day about how I kind of forgot how much I like hearing you sing.”

“Oh yeah?” His eyes crinkle with a wide and satisfied grin. “I’ll sing all you want, then. I should’ve thought to come see you during my free period sooner.” He twirls his fork around in his fingers, spears some cauliflower and keeps going. “I’ll come during my free period every day for the rest of the school year.”

“Please don’t,” Jihoon groans. “You’re distracting the kids. If you keep coming, they’re going to get even worse than they were last year, and Christ knows I don’t need that again.”

“But you never sing at home,” he whines. “How else am I gonna get to hear your beautiful voice?”

“Buy a CD and hear one that’s actually worth hearing, that’s how,” Jihoon scoffs. “You know what they say.”

“Jihoon.”

“Those who can’t do, teach.” Junhui rolls his eyes.

“Ah yes,” he groans, “like how I couldn’t become an octagon, so I started teaching geometry.” A deep frown replaces the smile that had been on his face just moments ago. “You know I hate it when you say things like that. It’s not true.”

“Except it is true, isn’t it?”

“What, because you didn’t put out a best-selling album like Seokmin did? As if that matters!” His fork hits the table with more of a clatter than Jihoon thinks is necessary when he crosses his arms. “I would much rather have you teach me to sing than Seokmin. _He’s_ the one who can’t do.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it.”

“I know no such thing,” he says flatly. The ends of his steepled hands point dead at Jihoon accusatorily while he speaks, bobbing slightly every few words. “We have to have the best teaching so the second best, which would be the student, can go make music for everyone to listen to.”

“I never taught Seokmin anything,” Jihoon informs him. Junhui waves his hand dismissively.

“Irrelevant. Besides, you helped him out plenty of times, and he wouldn’t have even asked you for help if he didn’t think you sang better.” Jihoon fixes him with a steely gaze, but it doesn’t seem to do much aside from drive his eyebrows a little higher. At length, Jihoon expels a heavy sigh.

“You reek of bias.”

“Not bias, honey.” He picks the fork back up and uses the cauliflower on its end as a pointer. “Love.” The fork traces a heart in the air before Junhui slips it between his teeth. “And love is honest and true.” Even though he says it like it’s a quote from somewhere, Jihoon can’t bring to mind anywhere he might have heard it. He breathes out slowly.

“Whatever.”

“I get you hate letting me have my wins, but I think you deserve to let me have this one.”

“ _I_ deserve it?”

“Absolutely.” His fork prods purposefully into another piece of cauliflower. “And as my well-earned reward, I want you to sing me a song.”

There’s no point in arguing. “What song?” he asks, and Junhui pumps his fist into the air like he wasn’t expecting the immediate concession even though Jihoon knows he was.

“Silver Bells.” A charged pause.

“It’s October.”

“Your point? You know Christmas starts in August for this man.”

Jihoon groans, but he sings it anyway, and there’s a tiny joy to be found in the content smile that spreads across Junhui’s face, warm and sugary and happy in every sense of the word. He joins in at the chorus, and Jihoon really does like this song even if it’s ridiculous to sing about the nearness of Christmas when they haven’t even bought their Halloween candy yet. There are silver bells jingling somewhere in a corner of the house that was overlooked after last Christmas.

 

It hadn’t been the ideal situation for Jihoon when he decided to become a teacher. He’d had things he wanted to do, different things, maybe more fulfilling, and he didn’t like kids terribly much to begin with, but things don’t always work out the way they’re planned. Fortunately, he was able to scrape himself into the vocal music education major just barely before everything could completely fall apart. He’d had a few friends who weren’t quite that lucky.

He didn’t meet Junhui until they were seniors. They were in the same educational psychology class, essentially the only class in common between music education majors and the general education program, and when Jihoon thinks back on it, he’s lucky he got into that class at the same time Junhui did. They did a lot of leaning on each other then, a lot more than Jihoon had done since entering college or maybe even in his life, in a way he hadn’t even known you could depend on a classmate. It’s more likely than not that they were both instrumental to each other’s actually passing the class, and in the spring semester after the fall when they took it together, it’s undeniable that they were instrumental in keeping each other together.

Student teaching was a lot of stress, and they learned it quickly, learned that you would fall nice and fast without somebody to keep you upright. In the same way the two strokes of the Chinese character for person, 人, lean against each other for support, Junhui and Jihoon held each other up through that last semester because the simple fact they were both there made it impossible to come crashing to the ground. They did a lot of talking, too, about the things they wanted and didn’t want, everything they were hoping for once they made it out the other side of the tunnel. A lot of times, Jihoon didn’t even know how he found himself in Junhui’s company, but he never felt up to leaving.

Sometime toward the middle of that April, they found themselves drunk and alone at Junhui’s apartment, roommates out for a night of real fun while the two of them lamented everything in life that had brought them to where they were. Junhui was draped over the couch with Jihoon sitting on the floor just in front of it, and he was getting a look for the first time at a number of freckles dotting around Junhui’s face. A wave of dark hair ruffled when he adjusted onto his side.

“Jihoon,” he muttered, halfway between slurred and coherent. “D’you think we can really make it?”

“I dunno,” Jihoon mumbled back. “We’re close.”

Junhui hummed before responding, low and musical. Jihoon still remembers wishing any of the kids in the class he student taught could sound that nice ever. “I’m glad we took the same class,” he said at length, reaching forward lazily to rest his hand on Jihoon’s shoulder. “You’re great.”

“Me too,” Jihoon said, patting the hand on his shoulder. Junhui’s knuckles were dry and his hand was warm, and something compelled Jihoon to pat it a few more times than he knew he needed to. Junhui’s eyes roamed his face for a while, wide yet glossy, seeing yet not.

“I like you, Jihoon,” he blurted, crystal clear. “A lot. In a love way.” So was it like or was it love? Jihoon didn’t ask that.

“Are you just drunk,” he asked slowly instead, wetting his lips, “or do you mean that?”

“I’m drunk and I mean it,” he said, then, “I wanna kiss you.”

“Huh?”

But he leaned forward anyway, and Junhui met him in the middle, and maybe it was just because he’d had a little bit to drink, but he got that feeling in his chest that comes from a good song or a home-cooked meal after months away, thought that there was no way to describe it but _good_. For a second or two, there was nothing but calm: no stress, no impending responsibilities, no unpredictable future. There was only the two of them, linked at a single point, touching just barely, and that was the first time Jihoon had ever felt like kissing someone was the absolute most important thing you could do.

They wound up having sex that night, some way or another, and it was the first time Jihoon had ever had sex with someone with whom he was not in a relationship, and more than likely the last. Everything felt fast after that—graduation, moving in together, living in general—but it all felt right, especially when they somehow found themselves lucky enough to teach at the same high school, to live in this house. Jihoon still remembers how he felt the day they closed the sale, the way his heart swelled and his cheeks hurt from smiling. It’s that feeling that he uses to placate himself times like now, when Junhui stands in front of his own choir class and very loudly proclaims things he does not need to be proclaiming only because Jihoon has a sore throat due to cold and can’t adequately make him stop.

“Mr. Lee had unbelievable abs in college,” he tells the transfixed group of children. “No, seriously,” he says when faced with looks of disbelief, “I wouldn’t lie on this. He still has them, too, but—”

“Take out Carol of the Bells,” Jihoon croaks, rapping his knuckles loudly and angrily on the piano’s top. They all snap their attention to him with wide eyes like they forgot he was even there, and it only makes him more irate. “Now. Mr. Wen, leave my choir room.”

The children and the teacher chime in at the same time. “But—”

“Do you want to sound awful at the concert?” Every word feels like gravel scraping down his throat, but he has to push through. “We’re headed there if we don’t get to work. I know you can all do much better.” The disappointment lingering under every word pulls the hands of the students to their song folders hesitantly. Jihoon flicks his eyes at Junhui, staring back at him from a yard away with his jaw slightly slack. “Leave,” he mouths, and Junhui is gone by the time he strikes the first key on the piano.

A bowl of steaming chicken noodle soup is waiting for him on the table when he gets home that evening after the afternoon rehearsal, and Junhui is standing at the stove making grilled cheese sandwiches, apron still donned even though sandwiches have no inherent spill hazard. He doesn’t turn around or offer any greeting when Jihoon comes in, fully focused on his sandwich task, so Jihoon just takes a seat at the table and blows on a spoonful of soup until it’s a comfortable temperature. It tastes like sickness and healing at the same time.

Minutes later, a small plate with two triangular halves of a sandwich slides toward him, and a hot mug of lemon-scented tea that Jihoon knows has just a little too much honey in it comes to rest a few inches from his bowl. Junhui takes a seat in the chair opposite him at the table with his own plate of sandwiches and bites into one immediately, chewing to fill the space where he’s normally so chatty. Jihoon eyes him with suspicion until he says something.

“Did I make you mad today?” he asks halfway through the first piece of his sandwich. He’s talking a lot smaller than usual. Jihoon hates when he does that because it makes him feel like an asshole even when he’s not in the wrong.

“I think,” he begins, pausing to give his throat a break, “you know the answer to that.” Jihoon has another spoonful of soup before saying, “You implied to the class that you’ve seen me recently with my shirt off.”

“I have, though,” he reasons. Jihoon presses fingers to his temple to maintain composure.

“They don’t need to _know_ that,” he explains impatiently, downing another spoonful. “It’s like you want them to know.”

“Can’t I?” he asks, aggravation evident. “Can’t I have a little pride that I get to love the most beautiful high school choir director of all time?” Jihoon sighs. There’s a point in there somewhere even if he doesn’t like it.

“I just don’t want a hundred teenagers in our business.” Junhui nods dejectedly. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” he sighs, fingers thrumming the table thoughtfully. Jihoon opens his mouth even though he doesn’t know what to console him with yet, but Junhui cuts him off before he thinks of it. “Have your soup, Jihoonie. We don’t need your throat getting worse so close to the concert.” The concert is still nearly a month off, but Jihoon obediently drinks his soup anyway.

Jihoon’s throat is feeling a little bit closer to good when he climbs into bed for the evening, pulling the covers up to his neck and wriggling onto his side. Junhui follows after him, close enough that he can feel breath stirring his hair from behind, close enough that he can feel subtle trickles of warmth coming his way through the sheets. Fingertips press gently on his back, tracing crisp angles and straight lines through his thin night shirt. He knows Jihoon doesn’t like to be held when he’s sick, but he still likes to be touched even if Junhui only functions in geometric shapes. He hums and counts the lines as they go. An octagon, a pentagon. Deep breath in, eyes shut. A triangle.

“I don’t think any of the kids believed you about my abs,” Jihoon mutters eventually. Junhui’s hand pauses for a second before going back to the rhombus it was outlining and he snorts.

“I’m sure some of them believed me,” he muses. “Kids have an instinctive sense for truth.”

“They do not,” Jihoon scoffs. “You’re more likely to get a kid who understands proofs.” Junhui sighs.

“Just wait, Jihoon. Someday I _will_ have a student who understands them perfectly, and then I’ll be the one laughing.”

“You barely even understand them,” he points out.

“Irrelevant,” he shoots, punctuating it with a hard poke. “There are a lot of smart kids out there, and someday, one of them is bound to get it.”

“We’ll be fifty by that time, at least.”

“Also irrelevant. I’ll still rub it in.” He ends the sentence with a few gentle pats on Jihoon’s back. “Go to sleep. You need to be well-rested to kick their asses into gear tomorrow.” Jihoon thinks of saying he also needs a certain math teacher not to interrupt class for him to kick their asses into gear tomorrow, but he decides to save it for another time.

The concert sneaks up quickly, too quickly, and Jihoon still isn’t quite sure they’re ready when it’s December 12th and they only have three days to go, but all he can do is hope that everything goes fine. Junhui’s visits had become far less intrusive during the remainder of the time before the concert, but that hadn’t undone their previous effects on the work of the kids in his sixth period class. As he waits at the side of the stage with his first group already standing in wait, he spots Junhui wandering in at the back of the hall, bouquet of flowers in hand, and sighs. He can already feel the students’ eyes widening.

His palms are clammy when he finally wraps his hands around the bouquet, sweaty after being clasped in a million handshakes with countless parents who are so proud of how well their children can sing and so impressed with how much you’ve done for the school’s program, Mr. Lee, and is there any way I can purchase a DVD of tonight’s concert because I’m so sure Timmy’s grandparents would love to see how great he was. Most of the students are gone by now barring one or two, whose enthusiastic guardians are still taking thirteen million pictures on the iPhones they hardly know how to use. They stand at a safe distance, on the opposite side of the stage by a few pots of poinsettias.

Red tulips and gardenias. Jihoon’s sure they mean something just as much as he’s sure Junhui expects him to know what they mean, but he can’t call anything to mind no matter how long he spends staring at them. The warm smile he sees assures him it doesn’t really matter.

“Good job,” Junhui tells him. It’s clear by the way his hands are restless that he’d rather do a little more than stand a comfortable foot away, but he knows better than to try inching closer, so he digs his heels into the burgundy carpet and keeps grinning. “They sounded great.”

“Thank you.” It feels genuine even though Jihoon knows he probably just feels obligated to say that, and it puts a smile on his face regardless. They stand for a while just smiling at each other before Jihoon recalls that time is still passing and there are other things that need to be done. “Well,” he says with a cough, “I need to take care of a few things before I can leave.”

“I have tests to grade,” is Junhui’s hushed response, “so I guess I’ll see you when you get home.”

“See you,” Jihoon says, and he feels the distinct sensation of lips on his forehead for no more than a fleeting moment before Junhui is walking away at a brisk pace. If he weren’t already so far, Jihoon would throw a fist; instead, he just clutches the flowers tightly in hand and gets moving toward the parents who helped get everything set up to tell them what he needs from them next.

When he gets home, he hears the faint splash of running water and muted tones of Silver Bells wafting from the master bathroom to the kitchen, meaning Junhui is showering instead of grading tests like he said he would be. A half-graded stack sits on the table with a red pen lying idly by its side, and Jihoon sets his flowers down beside it while he goes to look for a vase. He’s pretty sure they keep them on the middle shelf in the cabinet, and he’s vaguely worried that they might be too far back for him to reach. When he gets the cabinet open, he freezes.

The vases are there, right where he expected them, but that’s not what’s got his muscles so stiff. They’re actually perfectly within reaching distance, too, so he has no excuse not to go for them, but he doesn’t. There’s a little something in the way that he can’t quite figure out, and he won’t lift a finger until he has.

A small black box sits on the shelf below the vases, alone among a few cans of soup, so small that it can’t possibly contain anything, but so there and so pristine that it can’t possibly contain _nothing_. He reaches forward and picks it up instead of a vase, taking special note of the velvety outside of the box. It can’t be more than two inches wide, and Jihoon thinks he knows exactly what’s inside, but he won’t open it. If this is Junhui’s idea of a Christmas present, he’s done a very poor job hiding it.

“Oh, you’re ho—” Junhui cuts himself off as he walks into the kitchen with wet hair and slippered feet, night shirt hanging loosely from his still damp frame. “I see you’ve found my box,” he ponders aloud, amusement glistening in his eyes and tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“You’re bad at hiding things,” is all Jihoon tells him, and he just chuckles in return and takes a few steps closer.

“That may be true,” he concedes, “but I put that somewhere you could see it on purpose.”

“Why?” Jihoon forces out. “What is it?” Junhui raises his eyebrows in a way that says _you know what it is_ , but that’s not what comes out of his lips.

“Why don’t you open it and find out?”

“I don’t want to,” he says with a gulp.

“Why not?”

“I think I know what’s in it.” Junhui’s smile is calming and unnerving.

“You won’t know for sure if you don’t open it.” His stare is intent and unrelenting, and after no more than a minute of indomitable willpower, Jihoon breathes out a shaky breath and snaps it open.

It’s exactly as he thought: a ring, shiny and golden and probably the perfect size for the fourth finger on his left hand if he wants to try putting it on. Nestled snugly between the two halves of the cushioned interior of the box, reflecting the fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling and the fairy lights strung up in the next room over, it looks beautiful and elegant and special. He wants to put it on, but he also doesn’t, so he just turns to Junhui and finds with dismay that he’s on his knees.

Not knees. Knee. Just one. His right one. He looks up at Jihoon with eyes full of hope and empty hands clasped tightly over his left knee.

“Get up,” Jihoon commands, but he hears how hollow his voice sounds and knows he wouldn’t even listen to that. Junhui certainly doesn’t.

“Jihoon,” he begins, softly, tenderly, and Jihoon presses his lips into a flat line immediately. As much as he’d like to look away, he can’t bring himself to. “I know what you’re thinking,” he breathes out. “You’re thinking that this will pull everyone into our business more than you want it to and ruin everything and make going to work so uncomfortable, but it won’t. I promise you they only care because you’re so worried about them knowing.” His eyes search Jihoon’s face. “Everything is going to be the same, I swear.”

“But you don’t know that for sure.”

“I don’t know a lot of things for sure,” he admits. “But I have a pretty good hunch about most of them.”

“Junhui…” Words are evading him very effectively. They always have when he’s thought he needed them.

“Jihoon,” Junhui begins again, a little more firmly. “It’s been seven years since we met each other.” His voice is fragile and sturdy in the same breath, familiar and comfortable and unsure and nervous. “Six-and-a-half since we started dating, and four since we started living together in our own house. You know what I’m going to tell you.” Jihoon already knows he knows. “I love you. I have loved you for a long time, and you already know that, but I am so unbelievably in love with you every day of my life. I love you when I wake up and when I fall asleep, and I will still love you no matter how you answer me.” He takes a deep breath in and holds onto it for a few seconds before plowing ahead. “I love you, and I would love if you would marry me so that everyone knows how much I love you all the time, because nothing makes me prouder than loving you. Not even students who understand proofs.”

Jihoon barks out a soft laugh, but he still can’t get his tongue to do him any favors. “And I don’t want to rush your decision,” Junhui continues, voice still a little shaky, “but these tiles are really starting to hurt my knee, and I’m not getting up until I have an answer.”

When Jihoon looks at him there, he thinks. He thinks about everything he’s seen over the past seven years, the way he can’t detach Junhui from any of it. He thinks about the things they’ve done and the things they still want to do. He thinks about the way Junhui looks at him and the way he looks back, the way the kids in his class look between them suspiciously and how he’s finally starting to realize it doesn’t even matter. He thinks about the way his chest felt the first time they kissed so long ago and how he still gets that feeling every time. He thinks about how there’s only one way to answer and how he doesn’t even need to think about it.

“Stand up,” he says, but Junhui doesn’t do it. He snaps the box closed and flings his arms open. “I mean it, Junhui. Stand up and kiss me because I’m going to marry you.” There is no hesitation now when Junhui stands up and kisses him. There’s that feeling again, fresh like the first time and familiar like the millionth. Jihoon loves it.

“Are you sure?” he asks at length when he slips the ring onto Jihoon’s finger. As expected, it’s a perfect fit.

“Very sure,” Jihoon promises him, tangling their hands together. “I trust you.” He breathes in Junhui’s scent and eyes the flowers still sitting on the table without a vase to hold them. “And I love you.” Junhui laughs, warm and soft, and it resonates dead in the center of Jihoon’s chest.

“Since you love me so much,” he starts impishly, “would you sing me a song while I finish grading tests?” Jihoon sighs tiredly, but his smile makes it unconvincing.

“What song?” he asks even though he knows. Junhui smiles, bright and wide and beautiful.

“Silver Bells.”

Nobody notices their rings the following day at school save for a few other teachers who whisper a hushed “Congratulations” to each of them over coffee in the lounge. It’s a wonder none of the kids say anything given how much Jihoon adjusts the thing on his finger, but they don’t seem to notice it. There is one thing they do notice, though, that’s just a little bit different than most days, and even Jihoon slips out of the choir room and down the hallway to bear witness to it himself. All day long, no matter the time, anyone who passes by Mr. Wen’s classroom catches an earful of Silver Bells. Jihoon smiles quietly to himself when he hears it, hums along for a few bars as he walks back down the hallway. What a beautiful sound it is.

**Author's Note:**

> hello junhoon tag i missed it here.  
> HERE IT IS teacher au i have had this planned for a very long time but since i suck massively i just got around to it. sorry folks but i did say it would be here by the new year which is not technically a lie. boom  
> ANYWAY this was supposed to be a lot funnier than it ended up being and it was also not really supposed to be christmasy in the first place but also i do whatever the fuck i want so sorry but not  
> if u follow me on twitter u may have noticed i haven't tweeted like all week which is because i got FUCKING LOCKED OUT but u can find my new account if u go to my profile on here if following me was a thing u liked to do. if not just ignore this ig  
> LASTLY thank you so very much for reading!!!! i'm fond of this au and i really really hope you enjoyed reading it!! thanks again so very much for reading, and as always, feedback is greatly appreciated! so long!!


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